The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Child abuse is a blight on us all > Comments

Child abuse is a blight on us all : Comments

By Rob Moodie, published 9/7/2008

We need greater public awareness about the long-term consequences of child abuse and neglect.

  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All
Rob Moodie: "We need greater public awareness about the long-term consequences of child abuse and neglect."

Nowhere is this better illustrated and documented than in the Senate Report: "Forgotten Australians: A report on Australians who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children", 2004. http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/clac_ctte/completed_inquiries/2004-07/inst_care/report/

The Senate Committee heard hundreds of disturbing stories of abuse and neglect. Unfortunately the Howard Government buried this report and excused its own inaction by declaring that child abuse and neglect experienced by countless thousands of Australians as children growing up in out-of-home care were matters for the States, churches and charities.

Two years later it contradicted its own position by invading the Northern Territory.

For more detailed information visit these two websites:
Care Leavers of Australia Network - http://www.clan.org.au/pages/index.php
and Alliance of Forgotten Australians - http://www.clan.org.au/pages/index.php
Posted by Spikey, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 10:33:10 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
By far the biggest challenge regarding child abuse is the absense of a moral spritual foundation on which our culture and consciences are based.

Needless to say, many would disagree with this proposition, but I stand by it.

In the absense of an agreed spritual/cultural/moral tone of society, we are left with the Pharisaic conundrum of trying to invent a specific law for every kind of human behavior.

In Judaism this resulted in the absurd idea that a marriage betrothal could be based on sexual intercourse with the child aged 3 yrs and 1 day.
I invite readers to sus this out but I warn you, the material is a little obscure and very voluminous and tightly packed.

Their problem was "we have the Law, but the law does not tell us at what age a female can be married".

That was the point where common sense and the more overiding value of "do for others as you would have them do for you" or "Love your neighbour as yourself" seems to have been thrown out the window.

Personally, I cannot imagine how the human mind could ever come up with the idea of 3 yrs and 1 day..but some (not all) of the Rabbis managed to. (Babylonian Talmud era)

The Words of Jesus are to be our guide here "If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large stone tied around his neck and be cast into the sea"

That should give 'good comfort' to any Priest who abused a child.

In an age of 'what will be will be' we are lost.. straying.. wandering aimlessly in a vast forest of unfamiliar trees...

*turns on 'Back to the Bible' and settles into his recliner.....*
Posted by Polycarp, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 11:15:51 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Child abuse is much more common among children who don't have their natural father and mother at home. For this reason it will continue to increase especially with our blinded Secularist who refuse to condemn the perverted pornography industry. The breakdown of the family is the single biggest factor in the explosion of child abuse. Look at the indigenous in Australia and New Zealand communities demonstrate this point clearly.

We also as a society are to blame because we have allowed children to be portrayed as sex objects in advertising and of course art. Parents allow children to be hypnotized by the crap on TV and live out the garbage. We have little kids dressing like sluts at 6 or 7 heading off to discos. The parents of these kids are as ignorant or just in as much denial as warped parents displaying their kids nude in the form of art.
Posted by runner, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 11:29:36 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Rob I agree with pretty much all that you have written but I do struggle with the way you have addressed a couple of points

"It is happening in all sorts of suburbs - comfortable and poor, remote and urban, non-indigenous and indigenous. It is happening in single-parent families and in families with two parents."

True but misleading. It happens in all those places but it's substantially more concentrated in some than others. Schools in poorer areas are much more likely to need behavioural facilities than in wealthier suburbs. I expect thats because parents with poor life skills (including parenting) are more likely to struggle financially than because parenting skills improve with wealth. Kids in single parent led homes are much more likely to be victims of substantiated abuse or neglect than children in homes were both natural parents are present (single parents may generally get less support and reprieve from the day to day pressures of parenting than other parents). Kids from indiginous backgrounds have vastly different risk profiles to non-indiginous kids (a variety of issues there).

Regarding the approach to corporal punishment. I think that there is ample evidence available now regarding the developmental risks to children associated with hitting to negate that as a discipline strategy used by responsible parents. Equating adult discipline is in my view the wrong approach.

Children (smacked or otherwise) often lash out physically against others in a manner which could cause an adult jail time, by the logic of adult consequences for children the appropriate response to such behaviour from a child would be a visit from the police, charges and if found guilty some jail time. As a parent I still occasionally make use of the time out/thinking spot for my son in some circumstances. If I insisted another adult remained in a particular chair or room for a period of time when they clearly wished to leave that would classify as deprivation of liberty or something like that.

I don't have the legal rights or responsibility to disciple another adult.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 12:08:28 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Rob Moodie
Thank you so much for your excellent appraisal of this awful blight in our society. Never have I seen such an accurate, yet compassionate detailing of this issue.

I am a nurse who has listened to many stories of abuse (often sexual) of children in remote Indigenous Australia, and now I am listening to the same stories, in an acute, adult, mental health unit, in urban Australia.

Your writing, as you do, is invaluable as it tells the story accurately, without all the academic fog which turns the majority of readers off. Australia needs to hear you and ‘good on the Age’ for giving you a platform!

You are helping to promote a climate where victims feel safe to tell their stories. This is imperative. It starts the healing process. It shines a light on this dark cesspool in our culture. It sends a loud message to abusers and would-be-abusers that we as a society have zero tolerance to child abuse and that they will be discovered and dealt with.

Everybody in Australia needs to read your article and I’m starting by sending it to all on my email list. I hope other readers will do the same.
Posted by Helen54, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 12:26:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Depends on what the definition is. With the current hysteria, I think we need less of this bull!@#$ dragged out into the public so that special interests don't exploit it as they have done over and over again for their own agendas.

People like Rob Moodie here exacerbate the problem tenfold, screaming about it every few days. This obsession with it is absolutely sickening.
Posted by Steel, Wednesday, 9 July 2008 12:43:30 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy